> Sorry, Doug, but all of us Americans have ceded our power of attorney to
> that imperial state, and ultimately we have to bear the consequences. When
> you hang out a sign saying that your government is "of the people, by the
> people and for the people," you the citizen bear inescapable responsibility
> for what that government does. Ignorance of your duly elected agents'
> actions is no excuse.
I take your point, Carl, but Chomsky's right - what produces those smugly insensitive Americans and those 'serial losses of innocence' (copyright that one, Carl, it's beautiful - didn't Lewis Lapham write something about the 'culture of innocence' in Harper's?) is that they don't know any better. As they pay a fortune in shelf prices for a leviathan commercial media, they can be excused for thinking they get news on their news bulletins. Well, I watch CNN and Peter Jennings and GMA and Lehrer (yeah, I'm that tough!), and the fact of the matter is America is so ill-served by its media that a Yank would have to have a lot of time, a networked box and a culturally incongruous degree of motivation to get at what's happening in the world. Hence the power of that Cockburn St Clair piece.
If people have any negative opinion about Joe Sixpack at all, it's that his is the bliss of ignorance. Which particular joy is inevitably fleeting.
And Doug, the connection I thought you were making was that between grooving to US cultural forms and *consciously* appreciating America OR Americans. I don't think most people like 'America', and I don't think they think about Americans, qua Americans, at all. And yeah, I don't deny we're effectively free-riders - but then the choice for us minions is one between being on Big Butch's side and not being there. Takes guts and imagination to pick box 2 ...
Cheers, Rob.
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